Monday, February 13, 2012

CLASSIFICATION OF RAGA

Until the 13th century the Grama Moorchana Jathi Paddhathi was in cerculation. After that the Ragas were Classified in Indian Music chiefly as follows;

1 . Rag Ragini Classification of Narada in Sangeeth Makaranda.

2 . Shuddha, Chayalag and Sankeerna Classification.

3 . Jathi or Shadav, Oudav, Sampoorna Classification.

The ancients Classified all Ragas in toRaga, Ragini, Raga Putra and Raga Putravadhu.This Classification is called the Raga Ragini Classification. There are 4 theories about it. According to the 4 theories; They are as follows.

1 . Shiva Matha or Gomeshvar Matha.

2 . Bharath Matha.

3 . Kallinath Matha.

4 . Hanumath Matha.

Given below are the grouping of chief Ragas of each Matha.

SHIVA MATHA 1 . Shree

( 6 Chief Ragas ) 2 . Basant

3 . Pancham

4 . Megh

5 . Bhairav

6 . Natanarayan

Pandith Damodar describes thi theory in his book named Sangeeth Darpan as,

BHARATH MATHA 1 . Bhairavi

( 6 Chief Ragas ) 2 . Malkouns

3 . Hindol

4 . Deepak

5 . Shree

6 . Megh

KALLINATH MATHA 1 . Shree

( 6 Chief Ragas ) 2 . Pancham

3 . Bhairavi

4 . Megh

5 . Natanarayan

6 . Vasant

HANUMAT MATHA 1 . Bhairavi

( 6 Chief Ragas ) 2 . Malkouns

3 . Hindol

4. Deepak

5 . Shree

6 . Megh

Shuddha, Chayalag and Sankeerna Ragas Classification was described in Raga Vibhoda written in the 17th century by Pandith Somanath. According to this Classification Shuddha Raga is rag which doesn't require anyother Raga for it display. Chayalag Raga is a mixture of two Ragas. Sankeerna Ragas are mixture of several Ragas.

According to the Jathi Classification, ragas were basically divided in to 3 types. As Oudav, Shadav andSampoorna.These three basic types produced 9 subtypes as follows;

1 . Sampoorna Shadav

2 . Sampoorna Sampoorna

3 . Sampoorna Oudav

4 . Shadav Sampoorna

5 . Shadav Shadav

6 . Shadav Ovdav

7 . Ovdav Sampoorna

8 . Oudav Shadav

9 . Oudav Oudav

From each that with the of these 9 sub types, 484 Ragas can be made. Therefore with 10 Thatas, 4840 Ragas can be made but as most of them are lacking in sweetness, only about 200 Ragas are in use.